Generosity Explored

Generosity for us Buddhist is a term that is almost second nature to us. But in this blog I would like to take it to a deeper level. Sometimes I think we don't appreciate, at least as lay people, the depth of generosity Buddha spoke of. Over the past year and a half I have come to appreciate generosity at a deeper level: that does not mean that I am able to practice it at the same level but I appreciate it to the level generosity can be taken and can be developed. That is what I am going to write in my blog today.

So what is generosity? Well usually what we know of generosity to be of is, giving things to others. Be it food, clothes, money, offerings to the temple, donations, gifts to our loved ones and also to those who are less fortunate. When you go a little deeper than that comes giving our time, effort to someone or something without expectations or getting paid for what you do i.e. volunteering your time and effort to charity or Rotary, UN or the temple. Usually that is the level of generosity that people typically practice. I am talking at a very general level. But this is mostly what people call as being "Generous".

But Buddha takes generosity to a totally different level. This is where he starts teaching us how to move our minds from a mundane level to a super mundane level. Entire Buddhist Philosophy rests on the foundation of generosity. It is the concrete on which everything else is built upon....without teaching yourself to practice genuine generosity you cannot expect to march on in the Noble Eightfold Path because the Path requires enormous acts of generosity.

So Buddha started with little things first. Give food, clothes, money etc to whomever, whenever, because that is the first step. Then he said to keep the precepts. Did you think that keeping precepts were acts of generosity?! Well they are. Think about it. When you undertake the precepts to NOT to kill, you give another being the gift of life. When you undertake the precept to NOT to lie, you give another being the gift of truth. When you undertake the precept to NOT to commit adultery you give security and trust to another being, when you undertake the precept to NOT to steal you commit to protect what belongs to someone else and when you undertake the precept to NOT to get intoxicated you give another being the security of mindfulness and protection from breaking all the other precepts. So, here you put in the first efforts to firming that foundation of generosity.

Then comes the generosity of the heart! This is enormous. I mean until you become an arahant one continues to develop generosity of the heart. The development of the quality ends with the total extinguishing of the ego. For with any ounce of ego, there cannot be total generosity. In the same way, every act of generosity no matter how small it maybe, chips away at the ego.

So what is generosity of the heart? This is very hard to develop and few ever think of it. Even if they think of it, ever undertake it because it is hard to do. Easiest ways to develop generosity of the heart is to develop loving-kindness, compassion, sympathetic joy and equanimity (of course it's easier said than done) but we must try.

Simple things like forgiveness, letting-go of grudges, being able to deal with your angry feelings, feelings of frustration will be a good start. Sometimes, the pit fall of developing these qualities is that we think there is a goal to be reached. NO...there is NO goal to be reached. Only the journey to be savoured. If you make a mess out of the journey then you know for sure you will not enjoy the goal whatever that goal maybe. So in the name of being a person who is full of metta if all you can be is get everyone out of your way so you can have a peaceful life and a meditation then you are NOT travelling the Buddha's path, for sure! If all you do day and night is chant the metta sutta with diligence and you know all the words by heart and meanings and all of it but when the conditions are not right, you tend to get frustrated then you have lost the meaning of it somewhere. So please attend to yourself diligently!

Beyond the four sublime qualities, meditation IS the way to develop generosity in the heart. HOW? WHY? Even I used to ask they question. Even I struggle with that kind of giving where you have to give yourself totally. It's almost like there is nothing to hold on to except the teachings and your confidence in it. So you have to open your heart a lot. You cannot force it. It's like a flower. You cannot make a flower blossom. Just like that you cannot make generosity blossom in your heart. You have to give the right conditions, water, sun light, soil whatever it maybe, keep putting the conditions in so that the flower of generosity may unfold gradually, someday. But meditation requires a lot of generosity of the heart (after sila has been fulfilled of course..please note that one cannot expect to meditate with a soiled mind....words and actions needs to be purified before the mind purification starts and they all work hand in hand and one supports or hinders the progress of the other).

The other thing (of course digressing here) everything from our small days, we learn as lists. We learn the four noble truths as 1,2,3,4 and then the noble eightfold path 1,2,3...8 and so on and on and on.....numerous lists but only a few years ago it dawned on me that all what the Buddha taught it so interlinked that they don't go from one to the other to the next. They go like in circles and that it probably why it's called the turning the wheel of dhamma....they are tightly interlinked that we cannot separate one from other other. We cannot take what we like and practice just that just because we like it and not practice the other...you know some people say have just an odd drink...glass of wine is OK..it's really not drinking??!!!! So like that people tend to make exceptions to suite there likes and dislikes. But Buddha's teachings don't work like that. That's where generosity comes to play.

You have to give yourself to it completely. You cannot take bits and pieces just because you like it and exclude what you dislike. If you do, you cannot receive the Dhamma in it's totality either. I mean when you are sick and when the doctor prescribe medication to you, do you take the ones you like only?! And if you do can you expect a full recovery?!

Anyway, generosity at it's deepest level requires your whole body and mind. You need to give up both in order to experience Nibbana. But that's a long way away. In the meantime we have to savour the journey one step at a time.

If you are not a generous person (be honest for goodness sake, there is nothing wrong with it) try starting from giving little things away. Maybe your old clothes that have been hanging in the closet for many years. I know people who have had clothes they have not worn for 20 years and they still have them. Please give them away. Also examine why you cling to these. People do these things out of habit. They just like to see many things. Have many things. Have "Just In Case" things. Look at yourself. DON'T look at the other person...look at yourself. Try giving a little bit of your money away as well to charity.

If you have gotten past the first stage, then start practicing the precepts. Also be mindful. Know when you do these things. Don't just do these things just like when you brush your teeth in the morning. The Buddha said you have to have the Right Intention. Even if you do good deeds, you will not reap the full benefits or the full force unless you put intention behind it. Put your mind behind your good deeds and intend them.

If you already keep the precepts, then practice generosity of the heart. The beauty of the Dhamma is that the more you practice the more it will open doors for you to practice the Dhamma. As crazy as it may sound, it does and I believe it to be true with all of my heart. It's a silent force. Unfortunately, we are so in tuned with all the sounds in the world and the noises of our voices to hear the sound of Dhamma.

I have written a lot. I will stop with something I recently told my husband. It was on Nibbana. I think to experience Nibbana one must have an enormously large heart filled with generosity. Only then can Nibbana enter it. Because Nibbana is all encompassing. A small, shrivelled up heart, filled with greed, hatred, desire doesn't have the capacity to hold up something as big as Nibbana.

May your hearts experience the bliss of Nibbana!

Seeing things as they truly are

I never quite understood what it meant to see things as they were until about a week ago. It was a beautiful revelation. A quite humbling experience for someone who thought knew quite a lot about things and understood quite a lot. It also made me realise that life is never what it presents itself to be as. Beyond the endless complexities and apparent turbulences there is a simplicity to it that we need to open up ourselves to and completely surrender to. Then Truth appears like the Sun that's been covered up by dark stormy clouds!

You know when the Buddha taught breath meditation, he taught to watch the breath and know the breath and its characteristics. I finally realised that SEEING the breath for what it is, NOT saying to myself "Oh this is a long breath" or "Oh this is a short breath" or saying "This is a hard breath", "This is a soft breath", "This breath is fluttering", or whatever the breath is or is not....is where we learn for the first time to see things as they truly are. I had never felt more joy than the moment I realised this.

You know how in life, when we see, hear, taste, touch, smell it is always followed by a story in our head. We always have something to say about it. If it is something we saw, "Oh it's ugly" or "I like it" or "I just don't care much about it"....and so it goes on for all other sense experiences. But hardly do we experience things or see things for what they are without a story or a commentary in our heads. Think about it for yourself. Even when you meditate isn't it why you find it so hard to meditate? Because there is this voice inside your head that gets you to go the kitchen and think of what food to cook for dinner, or say 'Oh the body is not comfortable" or it's too hot" or whatever it maybe....there is always a story related to a sense contact or a story related to future or past, isn't it?!

When that happens we can never experience anything for what it is. Of course that is why we cannot keep our attention on the breath. Because there are too many other things.

But let's say it's the breath. Then we have to tell stories about the breath as well. When we finally shut down that chatter in the head/in our minds only can we experience and see things for what they truly are. Then the pure experience of things happen...just like the Buddha said. At that moment, even if it is for a moment, the mind has let go of hindrances and you see the breath for what it is and it is a beautiful thing. Or if it is not the breath, if it is the pain in your leg, you see the sensations travelling, arising and ceasing instead of as a PAIN that you want to get rid of!!

I also realised how breath meditation leads and supports Vipassana meditation. When you learn to see the breath for what it is and when you learn to sustain that attention long enough, you can then channel that awareness to mind objects as they arise and cease. You can see the mind objects one by one in its purest form as they arise in consciousness without the presence of hindrances but also not going or coming out of deep states of Jhana. But still it requires deep continuous concentration on a string of objects one after the other unlike in Jhana where concentration is only on one object.

What a beautiful thing. Buddha truly was a scientist of the mind!

Anyway, this was what I realised about a week ago. It refuelled my practice in a way nothing had ever done before. It was almost like doing an experiment and seeing that the method does work. I realised that Buddha's method does work. It does open up the path the way he said it would (I mean I don't know much but I saw just a speck of light in a far distance which appeared and disappeared but that was good enough). So it makes me want to try harder now with renewed vigor.

Reflections of my mind!

I just got back from a 9-day meditation retreat with Ayya Medhanandhi. This is my 3rd 9-day meditation retreat. During the last three years I have been privileged to go on retreats regularly. I can feel the changes in my mind states. It's funny in some ways to observe the journey my mind has gone through in meditation over the last three years.

Reflecting back, I remember the first retreat in Sri Lanka in early 2009. I was so frustrated half way through the retreat. I remember sitting in the shrine room and wondering what on earth I was doing there. My mind was going bonkers....seriously bonkers and I just tried and tried and the more I tried the more it went bonkers. In the end I just gave up and then it settled somewhat. I learnt not to push myself so hard. Well, I have a bit of a stubborn streak anyways. I guess that's my mind showing up...so I finally encountered it first hand and didn't know what to do. Then out of desperation I gave up and realised how to handle myself. I do have compassion for those who try to trifle with me now. People must feel real frustration trying to deal with me at times!

Then I went on my second retreat with Ajahn Brahm. I had expectations. I struggled with them. I was away in Australia and my husband had spent quite a lot of money sending me there and I felt the pressure of my own expectations. Again I struggled. I also struggled with my breath meditation. I could not relax. I could not relax enough for the breath to appear strong enough. So it was a struggle again. Half way through the week, I had a major attack of hindrances for a couple of days. But I stayed calm this time round since I had learnt from the previous retreat. I also learnt to let go of my expectations and relaxed enough to get some meditations. Again I learnt. I learnt to be patient despite odds stacking up against me from minute to minute, I learnt the importance of kindness, gentleness and making peace and what a difference they make to a turbulent mind.

This time I when I went for the retreat I did not feel the burden of expectations. I was relaxed. I was clam. I was willing to settle into the moment no matter in what form that moment presented itself to me. I found my meditation taking off. It's taken me many years, months and moments of much struggle, pain, frustration but finally I feel as if I am having a breakthrough. Of course I am also mindful of the fact that this breakthrough can also be fleeting. After all, all conditioned phenomena are impermanent. But while it lasts I will appreciate it.

Last three years of meditation and following the path of Dhamma for me personally has been like a little science project that I have undertaken on myself. I didn't think it would last this long. I tend to get bored with things easily once I start them just because things start getting into a routine and after a while it's the same thing being done over and over again. But ironic as it is, my life is a routine like it has never been. I have a routine that I follow like clockwork (hardly do I deviate from it). In it is meditation where you sit in one place without moving for a couple of hours a day. Yet, I am still to find it boring. In fact the more I meditate the more curious I become and the more interested I am in doing more of it. It is ironic that such outwardly boring looking activity can be so interesting and can generate so much joy and peace.

Meditation is also an activity that takes your whole being. If you cannot give everything you've got without expecting, you will not get much back. It' funny isn't it. In our life we are prepared to give and take. We are taught to bargain, exchange, work for what you get etc but here is something that requires all of your effort and all of your being and also requires you to give it without expecting nothing in return. The highest form of generosity is taught in meditation. It took me sometime to get used to this and get my mind around it (but it is still a learning). I am constantly inspired by that very thought now.

Meditation also teaches you to walk a fine line (the middle path). You cannot be too greedy so that you can exert so much effort to get it. You know in this world we are told that if you try hard, work hard, you can get somewhere, be somebody etc. but in meditation if you try so hard, your mind will contract and shrivel up. All you are left with is frustration, like I was left with. On the other hand you also cannot just sit back and wait for it to happen to you or do half heartedly or when time permits or when it's convenient for you. No...you have to put in all the effort you have without too much stretching. Then it takes off. Isn't that wonderful. The path opens up...it's like hitting that threshold. You know when a plane takes off or a rocket takes off it needs to hit a threshold to take off...like that the mind too has a threshold to take off on to the middle path. In meditation we need to find that. But it requires constant effort, every moment of the day, every waking moment.

The more I begin to see these, the more I develop enormous love for the Buddha and for what he taught. His wisdom is beyond my wildest imagination, his kindness I cannot fathom even in my imagination. He truly was an incredible being unlike and incomparable to any other. I do not wish to travel the Samsara long enough to see another Buddha but I do wish to see the Buddha by seeing the Dhamma.